Read more: "2014 preview: 10 ideas that will matter next year"
We have visited the moon and Mars, but there's one frontier much closer that we have only just cracked.
Last year a Russian team finally drilled into Lake Vostok – a subglacial body of water over 500 metres deep, buried under 4 kilometres of Antarctic ice. The samples they brought up are laced with DNA, which is now being analysed to determine whether there is life in Vostok.
Next year we will discover just what, if anything, lurks within the lake. Contamination from the drills could be an issue, but should researchers discover life unique to Vostok, what it looks like will be of most interest.
Any life they find – most likely single-celled organisms like bacteria – will have survived in one of Earth's most extreme habitats. For 15 million years it will have reproduced under high pressure and zero sunlight, in freezing temperatures and total seclusion. It will be the ultimate test of just how adaptable life is.
Larger creatures aren't out of the question, but a net won't draw them out. "The best way to answer questions about macro-organisms is to go in with a camera and look," says Martin Siegert at the University of Bristol, UK. "That's what's driving us."
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